


Live life like you stole it

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Horcruxes, Possession, Tom takes Ginny over permanently, Unhappy Ending, multiple character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:36:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6568390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things go differently, down in the Chamber. Instead of pouring herself into the diary, Ginny opened her heart to it, her heart and her mind, and that means a different path for Tom Riddle to take. No message saying <i>Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever;</i> instead Tom takes Ginny down to the Chamber one empty afternoon and waits for the last of her to die. When it is all over Tom flicks long red hair over her shoulders, picks up Ginny’s wand (not a perfect match, but better than nothing, better than fifty years without a wand) and leaves the Chamber. Saunters out of Myrtle’s bathroom looking like nothing more than a little eleven year old girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live life like you stole it

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've had this as an incomplete fic for ages... finally finished it. The title was inspired by a post from copperbadge's tumblr; it seemed too perfect not to use, considering.

**Live life like you stole it**

Things go differently, down in the Chamber. Instead of pouring herself into the diary, Ginny opened her heart to it, her heart and her mind, and that means a different path for Tom Riddle to take. No message saying _Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever;_ instead Tom takes Ginny down to the Chamber one empty afternoon and waits for the last of her to die. When it is all over Tom flicks long red hair over her shoulders, picks up Ginny’s wand (not a perfect match, but better than nothing, better than fifty years without a wand) and leaves the Chamber. Saunters out of Myrtle’s bathroom looking like nothing more than a little eleven year old girl.

Ginny had no friends and her brothers never speak to her, which makes taking over her life terribly easy. All the teachers notice is her rising grades. They comment on her progress in class, and Tom smiles and smiles and smiles.

Not that everything is easy. Tom’s new body is too short and freckled and skinny, barely worth a second glance, and it feels awkward and unfamiliar at first. Tom is ignorant of the ways girls treat their bodies, the ways in which they make themselves smaller and non-threatening. Tom takes up far too much space and walks with her head high, in long, determined strides. The boys her age challenge her with insults, but Tom ignores them as beneath her notice, even as she carefully catalogues every unwise word for later retribution.

The other girls think to tease her, about her looks and her hand-me-down uniform, the same way they’d teased Ginny all year. But Tom is not an eleven year old girl, and she is not willing to take their petty pranks and malicious words. She counters pathetic attempts at dominance swiftly, and when some of the girls dare to take her things – well, they soon have other issues to worry about. Homework goes missing. Important keepsakes are found ruined. And Felicia – who fancies herself Queen Bee of their little hive – comes back to their dorm one day to find her cat hanging from the ceiling. There’s nothing to link Tom to the grisly spectacle; she knows all about keeping out of trouble. But slowly the pranks and teasing stops, replaced instead by uneasy glances and whispered comments, and Tom is satisfied.

Draco Malfoy finds Tom alone in a corridor one day, and makes the mistake of attempting to torment her. Tom knows who he is: he’s a pampered, spoiled boy who thinks himself better than others, with no greater merit to recommend him than his lineage. Malfoy is not perceptive, and he sees only the youngest Weasley girl, helpless and alone. It never occurs to him that he too is alone, and that perhaps it is he who should be wary. His attempted taunts are pathetic, and he never even notices the peril he is in as Tom draws her wand, and carefully chooses her next spell.

Malfoy is found later, left broken in the corridor with no memory of his attacker. The words _little boys should know their place_ is written on his forehead in blood. The newest attack triggers a castle-wide lockdown; no one looks twice at the littlest Weasley, which is exactly how Tom likes it.

As she settles into her new life Tom turns to the one mystery she hasn’t managed to solve.

Harry Potter is a small boy, scrawny even, with bright green eyes (the words _eyes as green as a fresh-pickled toad_ rises from the depths of Tom’s mind, and are irritably brushed away) and a mop of messy black hair. He doesn’t hold himself well, drawing into himself rather than standing tall, and is quiet and unassuming. He holds no power with his classmates beyond notoriety, and is no better than average at his schoolwork. How could this boy – this painfully ordinary, unprepossessing boy – have been Tom’s downfall?

And yet, no one has any other explanation: the defeat of Voldemort at the Potter boy’s hands is considered incontrovertible fact. But if so, where is the boy’s _power?_ What strength does he hold that even as a baby, was enough to overwhelm Tom’s older self at the height of his power?

Tom can find almost nothing about Harry Potter that is not ordinary, and finds herself growing obsessed. The only sign that he is anything more than he appears to be is his use of Slytherin’s gift – Parseltongue. But where Tom always used it to impress and inspire fear, Potter doesn’t seem to understand the tool he possesses. To him, Parseltongue is just another language, hisses tripping off his tongue. Tom wants to shout at him, to make him _see_ what Parseltongue could be used for, see the light of dawning wonder and avarice in his eyes as he realises its potential. Instead she sighs, and adds another mark in the ‘fails to be remarkable’ tally for Potter.

Tom doesn’t understand it, and the thought continues to press at her, and so one night when Potter is down in the common room doing his homework, Tom creeps close.

“Hello, Harry,” she says.

“Uh, hi, Ginny,” he says, clearly uncomfortable, and not for the first time Tom mentally curses the fact that Ginny sent that wretched valentine. (It had seemed useful, at the time – Tom hadn’t realised that the valentine would later hang over her own head, once Ginny was gone.)

“I wanted to ask you a question,” says Tom, and smiles disarmingly at him. This may be a new body, and Tom is still learning how girls move and behave, but how to charm another, to make herself seem benign and attractive, is something she knows well.

She waits for Potter’s curious nod, and leans in close.

“Parseltongue,” she says, and Potter tenses. “You could use it to control people, make them afraid of you – make them do as you wish. So why don’t you?”

Potter simply stares at her, looks at her like she’s something foreign and strange, his expression more uncomfortable than ever.

“Because I don’t want to,” he says simply, and Tom’s brows draw together, and something must show on her face, because Potter explains, “I don’t want people to be afraid of me, or do what I want. I just want to be…” He hesitates. “Normal,” he finishes.

Tom stares at him. All her life – this one and the one that came before it, before the diary – she’s striven to be _anything_ but normal, to prove herself better in every way than everyone else. Potter’s desire to be ‘normal’ is, in a word, incomprehensible.

“But _why?_ ” Tom snaps, unable to understand.

Potter shrugs, and Tom stalks off, a hex at the edge of her tongue and her hand held tightly between her fingers.

That night Tom lies in bed unable to sleep, frustration warring with incomprehension. Not for the first time, Tom wonders – briefly, flittingly – if perhaps there is something missing in her, after all, something which would make others like Potter easier to understand –

but banishes the thought as soon as it comes, fiercely, angrily. Tom is not weak, and never will be – her strength, her cunning, her burning drive for greatness are indomitable, and she will not be bowed by childish fears of intangible inadequacy. If Tom does not understand Potter’s desire for mediocrity, than so much the better – all it means it that she is destined for more than he is.

(And yet…)

After that, Potter should become a non-entity – he is certainly no threat to Tom, after all, with his lack of aspirations to grandeur. (Even Dumbledore, however much he has disclaimed any hint of ambition for himself, still ended up the head of the Wizengamot and headmaster of Europe’s most prestigious school.) But Tom finds herself watching Potter more closely than ever, striving to understand what is not comprehensible.

This, she thinks, perhaps this is where his power lies – in his ability to make himself difficult to understand, perhaps he hides secrets which could be Tom’s undoing.

Ronald Weasley takes Tom aside one afternoon, pulls her into a dark and empty corner.

“Look,” he says bluntly, “you’ve got to stop following Harry. It’s making him nervous, alright?”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything,” Tom snaps, irritated at Weasley’s presumption, “and certainly not simply because you tell me so.”

It’s not Ginny’s words and it’s not Ginny’s voice, sharp and cutting, but Weasley only reddens slightly and fails to notice that it isn’t Ginny he’s speaking to.

“I’m serious, Ginny,” he says. “Harry knows you’ve been watching him – everyone knows, it’s not like you’ve been subtle about it or anything. It needs to stop.”

The thought of everyone knowing of Tom’s obsession with Potter makes her feel hot and angry for a moment, like the eleven year old she’s pretending to be. The idea of them talking about it and laughing about it behind her back makes Tom’s eyes narrow, her thoughts turning cold and purposeful.

She meets Weasley’s eyes, her own cool and hard as glass.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Ronald Weasley,” she says. “This conversation is over.”

“Harry–” Weasley starts.

“If Harry has a problem with my observing him,” Tom says, twirling her wand between her fingers, “then he can come and tell me so himself.”

Weasley huffs, but leaves Tom alone. Tom frowns to herself, and thinks that perhaps her interest in Potter has been taking too much of her time, after all.

That night Tom unleashes the basilisk again.

To Tom’s delight, the next morning Albus Dumbledore is ousted by the Board of Governors in the wake of the latest attack, leaving absolutely no one left at Hogwarts who might have the slightest inkling of who was behind it. Tom laughs, knowing that Dumbledore’s damned percipience will do him no good now. Smiling, she heads off to class with the other girls. A prefect escorts them all the way to their classroom, in case of another attack, and Tom scoffs at the absurdity of the gesture – do they really think a single fifth-year prefect would be enough, should Slytherin’s monster attack yet again? It’s a pointless gesture, imparting only a false sense of security.

Class is as boring as ever; Tom was always brilliant, and to be stuck doing first-year work all over again – her, the top of her sixth-year classes – is its own kind of hell. Tom casts watered-down spells and takes notes absent-mindedly, inwardly plotting her next move.

She slips away to the Chamber again that night, but this time –

This time, Harry Potter is waiting for her, the Weasley boy at his side.

For a long moment they just stare at each other, Potter’s eyes wide, Weasley looking just as shocked, and it takes Tom a moment to recover, because _how?_

 _How_ could Potter have known?

“Ron? Harry?” she says in a frightened voice, playing the part of the scared little girl.

“Ginny?” Weasley says, looking somewhere between confused and sick, on the teetering edge of a terrible epiphany. “What are you doing here?”

“Ron,” says Potter slowly, “I don’t think that’s Ginny.” His wand is out, and his eyes are strangely piercing behind the glass lenses.

Realisation blooms in Weasley’s eyes, and he turns pale, like curdled milk.

Tom drops the little girl act, and smiles.

“Very perceptive of you, Harry,” she says, and Weasley lets out a low moan, full of pain and horror. “I admit, I didn’t expect anyone to notice.”

“Who are you?” Potter demands tersely. Tom tsks.

“But you know who I am, Harry,” she says. “You read my diary, remember? You saw a memory of mine, before dear little Ginny stole the diary back. I suppose she was afraid of what you might do with it. She’d started to notice that she was missing time, you see. Such a pity she didn’t think to question the diary sooner. But then she was so lonely, without any friends, or her brothers to talk to her.”

“ _What did you do to my sister?_ ” Weasley’s voice is a thing of rage and pain, demanding answers. Tom smiles broadly.

“It’s quite simple, really,” she says. “I took over her life.”

“How?” Potter asks quietly, and his eyes are almost calculating.

“The diary, of course,” says Tom. “Little Ginny wrote in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes: how her brothers _teased_ her, how she had to come to school with second-hand robes and books, how she didn’t think famous, good, great Harry Potter would _ever_ like her…”

“You _bastard!_ ” Weasley roars, and throws himself at her. Tom catches him with a wordless _stupefy_ before he gets anywhere near her, and watches him slump to the cold stone floor.

“It’s very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven year old girl,” Tom goes on, her eyes back on Potter. “But I wrote back, I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply _loved_ me. _No one’s ever understood me like you, Tom… I’m so glad I’ve got this diary to confide in… It’s like having a friend I can carry round in my pocket…_ ”

Tom laughs at Ginny’s foolishness. Potter’s jaw is set, his hand clenched around his wand; but his eyes are still fixed on Tom’s, listening to every word she says.

“If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed. Ginny opened her heart and her mind to me… leaving me plenty of room to simply walk in.”

“Is Ginny still in there?” Potter asks, his eyes blazing with a curious intensity. Tom smiles, and shakes her head.

“I’m afraid not, Harry. Only one person can inhabit a body at a time, you see, and I – _I_ was the stronger soul. After all, how could a little eleven year old girl hope to defeat _me_ , the greatest Dark Lord in history?”

“You – what?” says Potter, blinking in confusion.

Tom smiles yet again, and raises her wand. Potter tenses, but instead of cursing him, Tom simply writes out her name: _TOM_ _MARVOLO RIDDLE._

A wave of her wand, and the letters rearrange themselves, and Potter finds himself staring at them.

_I AM LORD VOLDEMORT._

“You see?” Tom says softly, her voice loud in the silence of the Chamber. “It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father’s name forever? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry, I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!”

Potter is staring at her numbly.

“So, tell me, Harry Potter,” says Tom, drawing closer, “how did you, of all people, defeat _me?_ How did a mere child, a baby, defeat the greatest Dark Lord of all time at the height of his power? What secret power do you hide, that allowed you to escape your fate that night?”

“Nothing,” says Potter. “I’m not – there’s nothing special about me.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Tom hisses, because however ordinary Potter seems, she knows, deep in her bones, that he _can’t_ be. No mere boy could have been her downfall.

“I’m not lying.” Potter’s eyes blaze behind his glasses. “It was my mother – my common, _muggle-born_ mother – who stopped you. She died to save me, and that stopped you from killing me. I’ve seen the real you,” he adds, his voice shaking, not from fear, but from anger, “last year – and you’re a wreck, you’re barely alive. Just an ugly face on the back of Quirrell’s head, and then not even that. That’s where all your power got you!”

For a long moment, there’s nothing but silence in the Chamber. Then –

“I see,” Tom says softly, her voice almost like a sigh. “Love – is that it? The power of another’s _love_ saved you? After all this time wondering what secret power you could possibly be hiding, it wasn’t _you_ who stopped me, after all – just some Mudblood woman who’s long dead.”

She throws her head back and laughs, and Potter tenses, raising his wand.

“Oh, Harry,” says Tom, shaking her head and smiling. “You shouldn’t have told me that. After all, if there’s nothing special about you – why would I have any trouble killing you?”

She raises her wand, ready to cast.

“ _Expelliarmus!”_ Potter shouts, desperation in his voice – and a powerful force tugs at Tom’s wand – but Tom’s grip is firm, and Potter’s efforts do nothing.

Tom smiles, sinister and cruel.

“Goodbye, Harry,” she says. “ _Avada Kedavra_.”

Potter dies standing his ground, filled with defiance to the very last. As Tom watches him fall to the floor, wand falling from his lax grip and rolling across the floor, she’s conscious of a strange feeling in her chest… almost like… disappointment?

The Chamber is silent but for the tap-tap of Tom’s shoes as she makes her way across the Chamber floor, and bends and picks up Potter’s wand. It warms at her touch, and Tom regards it curiously, before casting _Lumos_.

Bright light springs from the tip of the wand, the spell working far better than it should through a stolen wand, and Tom wonders, almost uneasily, at how well-attuned Potter’s wand is to her magic. Tom has stolen wands before, but none of them have ever worked so well. This wand responds almost as well as the one she was given by Ollivander, all those years ago.

“ _Nox_ ,” Tom says, and the light winks out. Tom stands, and looks down at the figure of Potter at her feet. He looks even younger than before, if possible, and oddly fragile, sprawled out at an angle, his face tilted away from Tom. Tom stares at him for a long moment.

She should feel pleased, triumphant, but for some reason, she doesn’t. 

Tom turns away from Potter, that strange feeling still heavy in her chest, and almost negligently casts a killing curse at the Weasley boy, whose soft breathing ceases abruptly.

Tom tucks Potter’s peculiarly responsive wand – _her_ wand, now – into her pocket, and walks towards the statue of Salazar Slytherin.

No one will ever find the bodies, she knows. Perhaps she should leave a message for the teachers... Then again, perhaps not: maybe it would be better for Potter and Weasley simply to disappear, never to be heard from again, becoming one of Hogwarts great mysteries before, eventually, their unsolved disappearance is forgotten altogether with the passing of time.

Perhaps some will even think that the two boys simply ran away, Tom thinks, and smiles a little at the thought. After all... how many of Potter’s schoolmates believe him to be the Heir of Slytherin? Let the doubters think that Potter ran away to escape his purported misdeeds… at least until the _true_ Heir of Slytherin rises to greatness, once again, and claims her rightful place.

This time, there will be nothing to stop Tom – no one to stand in her way. And in the meantime, she will purge the school of mudbloods, living up to Slytherin’s legacy as she always intended to do. There is no Albus Dumbledore hovering around, now, eyeing Tom with suspicion – no muggle orphanage to be sent back to, should he find proof of her actions. Only a school left empty of its protectors, all the little mudbloods left defenceless.

And who would ever, ever suspect little Ginny Weasley of being the Heir of Slytherin?

Tom flicks her hair over her shoulder, and smiles.

“ _Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four_.”

The basilisk emerges, and Tom laughs, high and cold.

There’s no hurry, she thinks. She has all the time in the world.


End file.
